Accessing GL Systems

The tools for transfering files and connecting to the GL systems are somewhat different depending on whether you are using a Mac, Windows, or Linux-based system.

Connecting to UMBC from a Personal Mac or Linux Computer

On Mac and Linux boxes, first open up a terminal window. You can find it in the Utilities folder on a Mac; if you're running Linux, you must already know how to open a terminal!

To open up a virtual terminal session to the GL Linux systems, just type:

ssh username@gl.umbc.edu

username should be your UMBC username. Enter your UMBC password when prompted. You are now set manage files, run submit, g++, etc.

Transfering Files to UMBC from a Personal Mac or Linux Computer

To transfer files, you will use the scp program. You should un this from a fresh terminal window: you should NOT do this from a terminal window that is already ssh-ed into a GL machine.

Bring up a terminal window, cd into the local directory with the files you want to transfer, then type:

scp myFile1 myFile2 myFile3 … username@gl.umbc.edu:202files

This command will copy the files to a directory called 202files.

Connecting to UMBC from a Windows Computer

If you are using a Windows system, you will need to download a virtual terminal program like TeraTerm or PuTTY, as well as an SFTP/SCP client program (download links for these applications can be found in the Downloads section of the Resources page). Once they are installed, you can first launch TeraTerm/PuTTY and request a connection to gl.umbc.edu; this will give you a virtual terminal interface in which you can run programs on the GL machine, including submit and javac.

Transfering Files to UMBC from a Windows Computer

You can also install WinSCP, which will give you a drag-and-drop interface to transfer files to any remote system including UMBC. You can simply connect to gl.umbc.edu using your UMBC username/password.